Crashing Cars
by KatieH42
Summary: After Bruce's fall at the beginning of Hush Dick, Tim and Barbara have to cover up Bruce's injury, but that can be pretty stressful when someone they all love is dying.
1. Chapter 1

Something was beeping. Something very important. Dick frowned into his pillow and started reaching towards whatever it was that was making the noise. Usually he woke up quickly, years of living with Bruce and his sudden needs to run off into the night, but he was exhausted and incredibly sore – side effect of fighting mobsters every night for a week.

"Hey?" he muttered, as he pulled his phone to his ear and started pushing himself out of the blankets. As they slipped off his back he shivered. He needed to start sleeping in a shirt. It had just seemed like so much effort to put one on over his carefully bandaged shoulder.

"Dick you awake?" Barbara said urgently on the other end of the phone.

"Getting there," he said, feeling adrenaline starting to drive his sleepiness away and loosen up his tense muscles. He was sitting in the middle of his bed now with his heart beating very fast. "What's happened?"

"It's Bruce," she said. "He's hurt really bad Dick."

"How bad?" he asked, as his stomach dropped down to his knees really fast and really hard.

"Pretty bad," she said and just for that second Dick heard how afraid she was. He rolled out of bed and started to run to his costume. "I need you to get over to the Manor as quickly as you can and wreck one of his cars. The Porsche would be best."

"Babs what the hell?" he asked. He dropped his suit and reached instead for a pair of jeans. He pulled them over his boxers without thinking about it. His hands were shaking, his legs were shaking too, he had to sit down on the bed just to get the pants on. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "You know. It's Bruce. He's too stubborn to die. But he needs brain surgery and we need an excuse to get a really good surgeon."

"I know, I know," Dick repeated. Finally the pants and the belt were done. He just needed a shirt. Oh that was going to hurt but the pain didn't really register as he pulled a blue t-shirt that was lying on the floor."I'm on my way."

"Okay," Babs said. "I've got to go now. I have to talk to Tim. Where are you going to crash the car?"

"On the road into Gotham along the coast," he said. "It's bendy. Not hard to believe someone could seriously hurt themselves on it. Babs, I need to know, what happened? Bruce takes beatings all the time, why this one?"

"I don't know," she said. "Once I get in touch with Tim and Helena I'm going over to the Manor. I'll meet you there later and we'll talk. I'll send Tim out to get you all right?"

"Huntress is involved in this?" he asked a little more angrily than he meant it to. Bruce didn't trust her and that mantel seemed to fall on his shoulders whenever Bruce was out of commission.

"Details later, crash car now," Barbara insisted.

"Fine," he agreed. "I'll be there as fast as possible."

"See you later."

Dick hadn't even been close to the legal driving age when Bruce had started instructing him in the art of getting places incredibly quickly, ignoring the rules of the road, taking corners recklessly and still making it to the destination in one piece. He used every trick he'd ever learned to get the Manor.

Tim was waiting for him by the Porsche. Kid looked tired and pretty shaken but alert. He was sitting on the hood of the car with a kind of spaced out expression, like he was thinking about something really important. Dick assumed he was.

"Hey," he said as soon as his helmet was off. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, although he did look like he was convincing himself, let alone Dick. "Bring your helmet."

"Right," Dick agreed, grabbing it off the bike and throwing a hand onto Tim's shoulder. The kid had his jaw set just like Bruce did when he was so pissed off he could barely think but Dick wasn't sure that Tim was pissed off so much as scared.

"Look," he said pulling out a surprisingly good drawing of a car hitting a tree. The angles were marked and everything. "If you collide with a solid object at 60 miles an hour at about a seventy three degree angle, while wearing your helmet and dropping below the dash it will look like the kind of crash that can shatter a skull but you should be okay."

"Should be?" Dick said. "That's comforting." Tim shrugged.

"I'll follow you," he said.

Dick nodded. This seemed like the kind of moment where it would be profound and appropriate to say something to Tim, but nothing was coming to mind. He wondered what Bruce would say if he was here. Probably nothing. Maybe he'd grunt or mutter something monosyllabic and then brood even harder. Maybe if Dick hadn't spent so much time with Bruce he'd have some idea about how to comfort Tim.

"See you there," he said. He opened the door to the car. "Tim, why is there a pillow in the front seat?" he asked, pulling his head back out.

"Oh, I knew I forgot something," Tim said. "You're going to want to put that between your torso and the steering wheel before you impact."

"A pillow?" Dick asked. "That's what standing between me and internal bleeding?"

Tim shrugged. "If you follow my directions right, you should be fine. It's just," he paused and smiled a little, a sort of tired smile that his heart wasn't really in, "backup," he finished. "We gotta hurry."

"Yup," Dick agreed. "See you shortly. I hope."

For the second time that night Dick made use of Bruce's meticulous driving lessons. He accelerated recklessly around every bend and turn on the road. He knew the stretch pretty well, he'd even picked a tree to slam the car into, so driving stupidly fast wasn't that risky. He was a little worried about how much it was going to hurt when he slammed the car into a stationary object at over sixty clicks but there was something just a little exhilarating about driving a nice car too fast.

After about five minutes in the car Dick reached for his helmet, steering with his knees for the few seconds it took to get it on, then grabbed the pillow off of the passengers seat. "Tim," he muttered as he set it in his lap. "You better be right about this."

The big old tree came into view. He almost felt guilty about killing it. It had been growing there since Bruce was a child. But somethings just had to be done. He accelerated straight at it, took a deep breath, dragged the wheel to the left to get that angle that Tim had calculated for him, ducked below the dashboard and relaxed, just the way he would when he was about to take a long fall.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't loose consciousness from the impact but it did stun him. For a minute or two he just lay across the front seats, his ears buzzing and his nose twitching at the burning smell. Oh that wasn't a good thing, that burning smell but try as he might he couldn't seem to get his arms working, or his eyes to focus. "Dick! Dick!" someone was shouting and six painful heartbeats later the door opened and Tim grabbed onto his shoulders and started dragging him forward. "Wanna help me out here?" Tim demanded.

"Yeah, sorry," he muttered, groaning and shaking his head a little. "Right."

He started to crawl out of the car, although his chest wasn't really feeling it. Once he got to the door and felt the colder outside air he started to wake up. He realized that Tim had pulled off his helmet and was trying to roll him over onto his back.

"I'm okay," he managed to mutter, looking up at Tim's concerned face. "You did good. We gotta get back to the Manor. My head," he muttered as he sat up. "Thank God you did those calculations or we'd have two cracked skulls to deal with."

"You sure you're all right?" Tim asked scrambling to his feet so Dick could half climb him. Once he was standing, still kind of leaning on Tim, he shook his head, trying to clear the buzzing and took a few stumbling steps towards the other car.

"Yes," he agreed. "Well, close enough. Come on, let's go home."

"Babs?" Tim asked into the com as he ran around the car. "It's done," he said. "Yeah, I think so but he seems a little dazed. I will. See you shortly." He dove into the car as Dick continued his slow, slightly unsteady way towards his door. Tim opened the door for him from inside.

"How very gentlemanly of you," he muttered as he crawled into the seat. He rested his elbows on his knees and then closed his eyes and pushed his face into his hands. "Are you even old enough to drive?" he mumbled as Tim started to car.

"Do you think you should be driving?" he shot back. Dick laughed, a sort of snort laugh, short and a little painful on his very bruised ribs but a laugh. "Anyway, how old were you when Bruce started teaching you to drive?"

"Fair point," he agreed.

"And yes," Tim added. "I'm sixteen. Technically as long as I have a conscious, sober adult in the seat next to me, yes it's legal for me to be driving."

"So I can't have a nap then?" Dick said, lifting his head up and looking around as Tim pulled a hard left turn to drag the other car back onto the road. Tim shrugged.

Now that Dick's vision wasn't pulsing so much he got a good look at Tim. He kid was pale, his lips pressed tightly together, so tight they were almost colourless and his grip on the wheel had Dick worried he'd need a batarang to pry Tim's fingers off of it when they got back to the Manor.

"You all right?" he said at last.

"Fine," Tim said, exhaling nervously, his breath kind of catching in his chest loud enough that Dick heard it. "You?"

"Not so much," Dick answered honestly. He wasn't like Bruce. He was brave and he could turn off his feelings, just like the Batman could, but he needed to keep his mind busy, his body busy, he needed to keep the adrenaline flowing. Now that he was sitting still, relatively safe his heart started to beat too fast again and his mind raced so fast he almost wanted to puke.

Or maybe that was the fact that a stick shift had recently been driven into his belly.

"Do you know how badly he's hurt?" Dick asked, even though he was only fifty percent sure he wanted to know the answer to that question.

"No," Tim said. "I saw Huntress bring him in through. Dick it looked really bad. His skull was all cracked and Alfred, I've never seem him look so hopeless." His voice was shaking too. "I know what Barbara said is right. I know he's too stubborn to die but what if," and Tim stopped to swallow. "What if he's already dead and his body's only holding on because he refuses to give up."

Dick nodded. There should have been something comforting to say but everything that Tim had just said was on his mind too. He took a deep breath. "I don't know," he said at last. Tim nodded and bit the inside of his lip, just a little bit. He'd known that was the answer but he hadn't want to hear it. Dick managed to keep himself from sighing loudly. "But I think Babs is right Tim," he said, as a half assed attempt at comfort. "If Bruce didn't die when it happened, he sure as hell not going to die recovering from it. It's just not going to happen."

"You think?" Tim asked. Dick wondered if he was lying to Tim, who was still a kid, whether he was about to promise him something he couldn't follow through on.

"Yup," he said. "Mind if I borrow that so I can talk to Babs for a minute?" Silently Tim pulled the ear bud out and handed it over to Dick.

"Babs?" he said, tapping it once and leaning back into the seat. His head wasn't thumping along with his heart any more but he wasn't feeling a hundred percent either. It felt nice just to close his eyes.

"Dick, how're you doing?" she asked. She sounded breathless, like she was in the middle of something important.

"I'll survive," he muttered. "How's Bruce?"

"In the hospital. We're flying in an old friend of his who's a brain surgeon. He's supposed to be the best there is."

"Great," Dick said enthusiastically, mostly to keep Tim's spirits up. "And in the meantime?" he asked. Babs knew him, she knew him better than anyone in some ways. He mentally begged her to understand what he was actually asking was "will Bruce survive long enough to get seen by this doctor?"

"He's holding on," she said firmly. "Alfred said it was up to him. You know what that means." Dick laughed a little. Sometimes he couldn't sleep thinking about her, thinking about how they could have played it differently.

"Nothing to worry about then," he said. "We'll be back at the Manor in seven or eight minutes. I'll suit up and we can work this out." He looked over at Tim, who was still staring intently at the road but Dick was pretty sure he'd relaxed just a little. God, he was a kid. Maybe it was relative – he'd been younger when he'd started worry about Bruce being dead. It was almost a reflex now.

"Actually, I've got another plan for you," Barbara said. "Don't hate me."

"What?" he said suspiciously. Tim shot him a sideways glance at him and he smiled a little reassuringly.

"I need you to go to the hospital," she said. "Take Tim and get there, be there when Bruce comes out of surgery."

"Babs, no," he said. "We need to find out what the hell happened to Bruce."

"I know what happened," she said. "His line broke."

"Bruce's lines don't break," Dick said angrily.

"I know," she snapped. "So someone probably cut it. I've got the Birds on it, and we'll figure everything out but the information we need most Bruce has and we're not getting it for a while. So you can run around and punch some people's face until you get somewhere or you could listen to me."

"Fine," he said begrudgingly. "What's your plan?"

"Take Tim and go to the hospital." Dick had heard lots of bad plans. He'd even come up with his fair share of really bad plans. This was worse than that time he'd thought it was a good plan to use his head to break a window on a three story fall just to take out the thug who was pointing a gun at Batman.

"No."

"Dick listen, I know you'd rather have Nightwing working on this but we've just gone to a ton of effort to make sure that Bruce's cover is solid. His sons should be there at the hospital waiting for him to wake up. And," she said like she could see him opening his mouth to object, "I'm worried about him." That shut Dick's mouth quickly. "Don't tell Tim okay but that kind of injury. It could be pretty serious. I'm worried that when he wakes up he might not be himself right away. If he wakes up in the hospital without knowing how he get got there or what happened I'm afraid he might say something that could compromise himself, or us. I want you there."

"This is Bruce we're talking about," Dick said. "He'd never."

"You didn't see him Dick," she said and there was definitely fear there, the same kind that he'd seen in Tim's eyes all night. He'd been worried before. Now he was terrified.

"Alfred," he started.

"Just heard from him. The hospital is being ridiculous about visitors. They're insisting that it's only family. Last time I checked, that was pretty limited to you and Tim. So just go okay? I'll let you know the minute we learn anything that might be useful all right?"

"Fine," Dick muttered. "Talk to you later"

He hung up.

It pissed him off but Babs was probably right. It did occur to him that most people wouldn't be desperate for a fight when their adopted father/hero/best friend was potentially dying in a hospital bed. Going to the hospital seemed like a much more normal thing to do.

"Turn around Tim," he said softly.

"Why?" Tim asked as he expertly pulled a u-turn at an alarming forty miles an hour.

"We're going to the hospital."

Suddenly they weren't going any miles and hour and Dick was slamming hard again his seat belt. He grunted as the shoulder strap rebruised the bruises on his chest and the throbbing in his head pounded briefly. "What the hell?" he growled.

He looked over at Tim. The kid was shaking, his whole body and for a second Dick was worried that he wasn't breathing at all. Then he gasped enormously, taking in a huge mouthful of air and kind of choking on it.

"Hey," Dick said quickly, undoing his seat belt and climbing up on the seat so he could put his hand on Tim's back. "What's going on?"

"He's going to die isn't he?" Tim whispered.

"Oh God no," Dick said, mentally kicking himself for being so stupid just tossing that out there without any explanation at all. "Tim listen to me," he said in that firm, no nonsense,breaking-through-to-you-no-matter-what-the-trauma kind of voice that Bruce had, "they won't let Alfred into his room right now, only family. That's us right? And you know Bruce. If he wakes up with a headache in a place he doesn't recognize he'll be incredibly grumpy. We're going to help back up his cover story and to make sure he doesn't injure the nurses all right? That's all. I promise."

Tim looked over a him and Dick was surprised. Ever since he'd known Tim, he'd always seemed smart, weirdly smart, never vulnerable. Never like this. Dick grabbed the back of his head in one hand and pulled Tim's face closer to his own. He didn't look away, he didn't blink.

"Is he going to be okay?" Tim asked.

"I promise," Dick said. "I'm going to drive the rest of the way okay?" Tim nodded and reached around for his seat belt with hands that shook. Dick let go of him and reached of for his own.

Tim was just opening the door in the time it took Dick to get around the car. Instinctively he grabbed Tim's arm and helped him out of the car. Tim glared at him, but Dick just smiled back. He wasn't always that good at being an older brother, but he was not going to screw it up this time. He pulled Tim to his feet and held his arm, just a minute before he let go.


	3. Chapter 3

The drive to the hospital was the kind of quiet stressful that seemed to eat away at Dick's brain and drive him closer and closer to insanity and make him drum his fingers on the wheel so hard it hurt them but he got through it. The crowds of people waiting for them in front of the hospital made him want to punch things. Instead he put his hand on Tim's shoulder and steered him towards the hospital doors. Dealing with the hospital staff was exhausting but not because they weren't doing their jobs, just because Dick had been awake for something brutal like twenty nine hours and he was just too tired to have people patiently explain Bruce's condition in condescending, noncommittal medical terms. Waiting in the waiting room, even if it was the nicest waiting room the hospital had to offer, was kind of like the seventh level of hell.

Tim had managed to lift a notepad and a pen from somewhere and he sat next to Dick, enthusiastically scribbling away all morning. After a few minutes Dick realize he was listening to Oracle's reports over the com and taking notes. He moved closer and slipped his arm behind Tim so he could read over the boy's shoulder.

"This doesn't make sense," he muttered.

"I know," Tim said back to him, very quietly and without looking up. To anyone who was looking at them they looked like two worried brothers reassuring each other quietly, not two costumed crime fighters trying to understand how this possibly could have happened. "Catwoman wouldn't have had time to cut it, Killer Croc doesn't make sense. There's someone here we're not seeing."

"Yeah," Dick agreed. "Have the Birds found anything?"

"Nothing useful yet," Tim answered. "Huntress brought him in but she didn't see him fall. I don't understand."

"Tm," he said. "We'll figure out who did this and we will make them pay for it."

"I know," he agreed.

The surgery took forever. Dick understood that rebuilding a brain wasn't something anyone could get done in a half hour, but somehow he hadn't realized that this is what would be happening when Babs told him her genius plan. Tim was wearing a watch which Dick checked a few times. The doctor had started about eight in the morning, and by two in the afternoon he'd fallen asleep with his arm still behind Tim. It probably looked affectionate, like they were a real family, as least to anyone who didn't know better.

"Dick?" Tim was asking urgently. He grunted and opened his eyes, sleepily. Tim had his hand in the middle of Dick's chest and he was shaking him, but very carefully Dick noticed since he wasn't in a ton of pain.

"What?" he asked yawning. His arm had fallen off the back of the chair while he slept so it was actually around Tim. Man, it had to have been a rough night for everyone if he'd fallen asleep with Tim in his arms and Tim had let him.

"Mr Grayson?"a nurse was saying. "You're father's out of surgery now You can go to see him."

"Is he awake?" Dick asked, standing up quickly and trying to make himself look a little more respectable, more adult by straightening his jacket and running a hand through his hair, which was a disaster, as usual. "Can we talk to him?"

"It's unlikely," she said. "He'll be out for another twelve hours probably and it's unlikely he'll be able to speak when he wakes up. The neurological damage was so severe we have no idea what his mental state will be when he wakes up. But you're welcome to wait here as long as you like. First room on the left at the end of the hall."

"Thanks," he said. "Come on Tim."

Weirdly it seemed absolutely appropriate and completely necessary for him to drop his hand onto Tim's shoulder to guide him down to the end of the hall. If Tim thought this was weird he didn't say anything. Someone had put a pair of arm chairs in the room. Apparently if your father donates enough to the hospital it is possible to get a comfortable chair in a hospital Dick though dryly as Tim pulled away from him and ran over to the bed.

It was definitely Bruce, but he didn't really look like himself. His head was bandaged from his eyebrows up and he was so pale Dick thought he was dead, just for a second but it made him feel sick. All around Bruce machines beeped in calm, steady rhythms. Tim looked them over quickly before moving away to lean against the bed and inspect Bruce's face. Dick wasn't quite that good at reading the machines but he worked them out eventually.

"Guess he's not waking up for a while," Tim said, sitting down in the chair. Clearly the kid had been spending way too much time with Bruce since he looked so tired Dick wasn't sure he could see straight and he was still standing.

"Probably not," Dick said. "Might as well settle in for some more fun waiting. Remind me not kill Babs the next time we're in the same place okay?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "You think he'll be okay?" He nodded towards Bruce. Dick nodded.

"I promise." He couldn't stop himself from yawning. "Sorry," he said. "I think I need a nap. My head's still pounding from that smashing into a tree thing. You be okay if I doze off?" Tim glared at him and he smiled. "Figured."

He woke up a few hours later. He was stiff but his head wasn't hurting nearly as much as it had. Tim had curled up in the arm chair next to him, finally sleeping. Dick was glad. He pulled off his jacket and kind of tucked it around Tim's shoulders awkwardly.

Bruce hadn't moved. Not surprising. He walked over and looked down at his unconscious mentor. "I promised him you'd be okay Bruce," he muttered. "Don't you dare make a liar out of me."


	4. Chapter 4

Waiting was bad enough. Bruce used to make him sit on rooftops and wait for hours and hours and hours in the rain but he'd traded three days of that just an hour of this. Waiting in a hospital was like hell. There was no where to go, there was nothing he could do. He couldn't even pace without risking waking Tim. He slipped out to get coffee a few times, and to call Barbara and Alfred to let them know Bruce was out of surgery. Babs was so busy she barely paused long enough to breath during their conversation but she sounded relieved. Alfred sounded like himself, only more exhausted then usual. Dick was pretty sure he'd talked Alfred into going home to get some rest, but he wouldn't have been at all surprised to find him sleeping in a waiting room somewhere. He glared at the nurses and doctors who made too much noise, and then followed them out to talk, to hear the same thing again.

Everything seemed to be going well, indicated by the fact that Bruce wasn't dead yet but no one wanted to say it and Dick felt like if one more person gave him a half answer he would punch them in the face. Oh he was so not good at this.

Even the hot nurse who came in once an hour and smiled at him sweetly was not taking his mind off things.

It was almost dinner time. Dick imagined Alfred sitting somewhere in the hospital getting increasingly agitated that there was no one he could force to eat. Worse still, pacing through the Manor waiting for someone to come back. It didn't make him feel better.

He'd had way too much coffee, every minute it got harder and harder to sit still. Tim was still out like a light and God help anyone who tried to wake the kid up.

The sun set, which just made Dick want out more, to suit up and do something. He couldn't pace he couldn't fidget any more, he couldn't keep sending Babs text messages because Tim had fallen asleep with the com in one ear and Dick couldn't work out how to get the damn thing out without waking the boy so texting was the only way to get any information at all. He was almost considering jumping out the window just so he could walk up the stairs when he noticed something.

Bruce had opened his eyes.

"Hey!" he said quietly, jumping over to his side. "Can you hear me?" He blinked very slowly, too slowly for it to be a coincidence. A breath Dick didn't know he was holding suddenly escaped his lungs so fast he had to catch himself on the bed. "How you feeling?" he asked. Bruce jerked his head a half an inch to the left and the tightened his jaw like it hurt really bad. "Makes sense," Dick said. "The doctors weren't sure you'd have any brain function at all, so you're already wildly exceeding expectation." He glared. Dick couldn't stop himself from smiling. Even after recently having his skull reconstructed he could still glare. Then he frowned kind of questioningly. It was kind of remarkable that he was clearly asking Dick questions without speaking. "The doctors said you won't be able to talk or move or think," he said quickly. "So just try not to push yourself too far okay? You're in Gotham Gen, you just got out of some pretty serious brain surgery. Do you remember what happened?" Bruce did the same tiny nod, just a half inch then closed his eyes, apparently because that hurt too. "Good," Dick said, sitting down next to him. "You crashed the Porsche into a tree on the road into Gotham right?" He nodded again. "Good," he said. Bruce tried to cock his head. "We don't know what happened yet," Dick said. "Hey Tim," he said, turning around and pulling out a receipt from his pocket. He crunched it up and tossed it at the kid.

Tim grunted when it bounced off his face ad looked up.

"He's awake," Dick said.

"Hey!" Tim said breathlessly, scrambling to his feet and over to the bed. Bruce smiled a tiny, tiny smile when Tim came into view and Dick felt a little unloved. "How you doing?" Tim asked. Bruce shook his head. "Yeah you should see what they had to do to your brain," he said. "I hacked into your file and it's pretty crazy." Dick grinned at Tim that time.

"Anyway, we should call the doctors," Dick said. "As soon as they think you'll survive a car ride I'll start making arrangements to get you back to the Manor where Alfred and Leslie can look after you okay?"

Dick turned away, confident that nothing would happen in the time it took him to get to the door and if it did Tim could handle it. "Tell Babs," he instructed Tim quietly and the boy nodded.

"Robin," Bruce said very quietly.

Dick turned around. Bruce hadn't moved but he was half smiling at both of them. "Robins," he repeated just a little louder. Tim grinned and Dick almost laughed out loud.

Bruce was going to be okay.


End file.
